whiteblossom Tue 01-Jul-14 10:41:28
Red its unlikely to be anything to worry about. The ecs will be brought forward or put back- they will have to plan around any strike and as kitkat said they wont all walk out leaving women in labour! They have to put the health and safety of the patient first.
I had the ELCS booked at 16 weeks to alleviate and stress and fears around uncertainty throughout my pregnancy. Its been brilliant and has really helped by being done so early. By now having this possibility hanging over it, its removed this security blanket for me. Its playing into and feeding all the fears I had to begin with and my worst case scenario nightmares.
So this is really bothering me. One of my worst fears has always been having an ELCS cancelled because I fear its a deliberate tactic to reduce them and effectively force you to have a vb. And I've previously had panic attacks and nightmares about the about the ward being closed due to overcrowding (not helped by paranoia about having a September baby). I've already had to have support and reassurance neither of this situations is going to happen. So the threat of a strike is undermining and making me feel very anxious again.
I already feel like I'm the bottom of the list for 'needing' an ELCS as it is. I'm the 'easiest' one to bump off the list in the minds of a lot of people. Mental health reasons not being considered as important as physical ones (perhaps rightly so, if you are talking life and death situations). But I still feel I am at risk here. In terms of health and safety, I do not see how you can have any level of strike without some compromise on health and safety. The issue is how you measure that. If it all go tits up for me as a result, nothing would appear on any report, because its not the type of information which is recorded. It'll just be 'tough shit'.
I simply don't know if I could cope with the prospect of changing my ELCS date. I think I'd go into a massive melt down over it. This has been such a long and emotional journey to get to this point as it is. The politics of childbirth, I've found to be dreadful and too frequently about budgets and beliefs rather than about women's needs and research. I can just about get my head around the baby coming early naturally or for medical need as there isn't anything that can be done (though I find this is difficult), but it changing because of a strike, fills me with horror at this stage. I'm comfortable with the date I have, but worry about a delay because of the implications of me going into labour and worry about having the baby too early for its sake based on the research out there.
My issues of trust in those caring for me and whether my interests really are their top priority are pretty deep seated but I have made some progress. Progress that I don't want to go right back to square one with.
Trouble is I can't avoid the extra stress that this has now brought. I wish I could just switch off like everyone else seems to have already done. It does make me feel like shit, because it seems legitimate to worry about physical worries but not this.
The irony is my blood test result came back this week (the blood test no one wanted to do) and they sent me a letter requesting a repeat without stating why. I've been less anxious about that as Dr Google has been more reassuring than latest round of trying to follow it up. (Long story short - was told they couldn't book one, despite the letter telling me to). I am getting a long list of notes/letters going missing (it became apparent that yet another one walked in Feb last week), no one taking responsibility for anything and just giving me incorrect information.
Don't get me wrong, everyone has been really nice and given me lots of time at appointments, which is more than some of you seem to be getting, but some of the incidents trouble me, as the potential problems could have been serious (thankfully to my knowledge its all been minor). Given my anxiety is about HCPs, trust in them and my problems trying to communicate issues with them and is documented as being a medical issue its not exactly a great state of affairs though. Its beginning to feel like a real battle, I'm constantly going round in circles and that my notes are completely and utterly pointless. I'm dreading appointment with midwife tomorrow as I'm pretty sure its going to be more of the same too for various reasons.
Whilst I appreciate that midwives, really need to be valued and I do - my experiences have been on the whole positive, I can't help but feel that someone is going to suffer as a result of any strike regardless of any measures they put in to 'protect' women. I'm not sure I can reconcile my very strong feelings over the real need to improve maternity services and knowing the price that a strike comes at.